Talpiot Tomb

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An image of the chevron-adorned entrance to the Talpiot Tomb, as it was unearthed in 1980.
An image of the chevron-adorned entrance to the Talpiot Tomb, as it was unearthed in 1980.
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The Talpiot Tomb (or Talpiyot Tomb) is a tomb discovered in 1980 in the East Talpiot Israeli Settlement five kilometers south of the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel. It contained ten ossuaries, six of them with epigraphs, including one with the inscription that has been interpreted as "Jesus, son of Joseph", though this text is disputed.[1] The tomb also yielded various human remains and several carvings.

The Talpiot find was first published in 1994 in "Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel" numbers 701-709, and first discussed in the media in Britain during March/April 1996.[citation needed] Later in 1996, an article describing the find was published in volume 29 of Atiqot, the journal of the Israel Antiquities Authority. A controversial 2007 documentary film produced by Canadian film director James Cameron and investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus and a book written by Jacobovici, together with Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb present findings that the authors believe prove that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as several other figures from the New Testament. This claim is disputed by many archaeologists and theologians, as well as language and biblical scholars.

Contents

[edit] History

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The archaeological team that excavated the tomb in 1980 determined it to be from the Second Temple period, which lasted from about 538 B.C. to A.D. 70. Typical of the area, a tomb of this type would be assumed to have belonged to a wealthy Jewish family. About 900 similar tombs have been unearthed in the same area.[2]

[edit] Discovery and excavation

The tomb was discovered on March 28, 1980 by construction workers laying the foundations for an apartment complex,[3] when preparatory demolition work accidentally uncovered the tomb's entrance. The site was visited the next day by Amos Kloner, the area supervisor for the Israel Department of Antiquities (IDA, now the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA.) Kloner drew up a set of preliminary sketches and requested a permit for a salvage dig to be directed by Yosef Gath. The permit was issued Monday, March 31, but work actually began the day before.[3] Although it has been said that the team was only given three days to complete the work,[4] Gath's notes indicate that the work proceeded "intermittently" until its official end on April 11, with most of the work completed within the first two days.

Construction of the apartment buildings was completed in 1982. The children of Tova Bracha, a local resident, managed to get into the tomb and play inside. Bracha notified the authorities, who sealed the entrance for safety reasons.[5] The children found some discarded Jewish religious texts that had been placed in the tomb, which was being used as a genizah.

Jacobovici and his film crew opened the tomb again in 2005. Their footage was incorporated into the 2007 documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus. As Jacobovici and his crew had neglected to obtain permission from the Antiques Authority, an official ordered that the tomb be resealed. The tomb, which is not open to the public, is located in a courtyard on Dov Gruner Street, down a flight of stairs at the corner of Olei Hagardom and Avshalom Haviv Streets.[6]

The concrete slab covering the tomb
The concrete slab covering the tomb

[edit] Layout

The tomb is carved from the solid limestone bedrock.[7] Within are six kokhim or burial shafts and two arcosolia, or arched shelves where a body could be laid out for entombment. The ossuaries were found within the shafts.[3]

[edit] Artifacts

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[edit] Ossuaries

Ten limestone[7] ossuaries were found, with six of them bearing epigraphs[2] although only four of them were recognized as such in the field.[3] The archaeological team determined the ossuaries to be of little note, and delivered them to the Rockefeller Museum for analysis and storage. According to Jacobovici, Cameron, and religious studies professor James Tabor, one of the unmarked ossuaries later disappeared when it was stored in a courtyard outside the museum.[3] This claim has been criticized by both Joe Zias, former curator of the museum, and Kloner.[8]

[edit] Human remains

Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by the Kloner.[3] The tomb may have been multigenerational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents[9] and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found.[3] In addition, three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb below the 0.5 metre fill layer,[4] and crushed bones were found in the fill upon the arcosolia.[3] The scattering of these bones below the fill indicated that the tomb had been disturbed in antiquity.[9] All the bones were eventually turned over to religious authorities for burial.[9][3]

[edit] Symbols

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Some of the walls have carvings on them, including several chevron symbols. A "chevron and circle" pattern is visible above the entrance of the tomb. Some believe this is a depiction of the facade of the Nicanor gate of the Temple in Jerusalem, which appears on coins from this period.[10] In the same way that the Nicanor gate marked the end of a pilgrimage, the entrance to the tomb marked the end of a pilgrimage. The symbol over the entrance is thought to be a "Purity eye" or "Ascension eye." A circle or dot inside a triangle is the Paleo-Hebrew symbol for an eye peering through a door. In Egypt, the chevron or triangle symbolized purity or ascension.

[edit] Media coverage

The BBC first aired a documentary on the Talpiot Tomb in 1996 as part of its Heart of the Matter news magazine.[4] At that time, Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site said the claims of a connection to Jesus did not hold up archaeologically, adding "They just want to get money for it." Others were similarly skeptical, though another of the archaeologists who discovered the tomb admitted "I'm willing to accept the possibility."[11]

The tomb was featured on the Today Show on February 26, 2007 where it was mentioned that the ossuaries were sent to New York.[citation needed]

[edit] 2008 Princeton Symposium and Controversial Media Coverage

Following a symposium ("Third Princeton Theological Seminary Symposium on Jewish Views of the Afterlife and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context") held in Jerusalem in January 2008, the media interest in the Talpiot tomb was reignited with most notably Time[12] and CNN[13] devoting extensive coverage, hailing the case as being re-opened. In particular Simcha Jacobovici issued statements to the press saying the symposium has reopened the case and that he felt 'totally vindicated'[14] Following the media's portrayal scholars present at the symposium accused Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron for misleading the media in claiming the symposium re-opened their theory as viable. Several scholars, including significantly all of the archaeologists and epigraphers, who had delivered papers at the symposium issued an open letter of complaint at misrepresentation, saying that Jacobovici and Cameron's claims of support from the symposium are "nothing further from the truth"[15].

The list of scholars who signed the open letter's criticism included:

  • Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
  • Choon-Leon Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
  • F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
  • Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
  • Rachel Hachlili, Haifa University
  • Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
  • Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
  • Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
  • Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
  • Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
  • Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
  • C.D. Elledge, Gutavus Adolphus College

Joe Zais, Senior Curator of Archaeology/Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority 1972-1997, cited a leaked memo issued from James Tabor before the symposium as proof of 'outside intervention by Simcha and Tabor in order to distort the agenda and skew the proceedings in a way that was favorable to their pre-conceived plan'[16]. Geza Vermes issued a statement saying that the arguments for the Talpiot tomb are not "just unconvincing but insignificant"[17]. That "Discounting a handful, headed by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, the maker of the documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, most of the fifty or so participants shared this opinion".

Princeton Theological Seminary issued a letter following the controversy and reiterated concerns that:

"the press following the symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression (of the symposium's results), stating, instead, that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit and scholarly content of the deliberations."[18]

The proceedings of the symposium will be edited by James Charlesworth and published[19].

A recent edition of the scientific journal Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4, Sep-Dec 2006), published by The American Schools of Oriental Research contains several articles concerning the Talpiot Tomb, including an overview over the controversy.

[edit] The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb

Main articles: The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb

The Lost Tomb of Jesus premiered on The Discovery Channel on March 4, 2007, timed to coordinate with publication of Jacobovici's book The Jesus Family Tomb.

With the help of statisticians, archaeologists, historians, DNA experts, robot-camera technicians, epigraphers and a forensic expert, Jacobovici argued that the bones of Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalene, along with some of their relatives, were once entombed in this cave. This claim is rejected by most biblical scholars of archaeology.[20][21]

Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was among the first to examine the tomb when it was first discovered, said the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time. "I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," he told the BBC News website. "The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film."[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Heiser, Michael. [http://www.michaelsheiser.com/Jesus%20Tomb%20article%20Heiser.pdf Evidence Real and Imagined: Thinking Clearly About the “Jesus Family Tomb”] (PDF) pp 9-13. Retrieved on 2007-06-08.
  2. ^ a b Milstein, Mati. "Jesus' tomb claim slammed by scholars", National Geographic News, 2007-02-28. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tabor, James (2007-03-27). A Passover in 1980. The Jesus Dynasty Blog. Retrieved on 2007-06-08.
  4. ^ a b c Laidlaw, Stuart (2007-02-26). Jesus tomb claim sparks furor. Toronto Star. Retrieved on 2007-02-28.
  5. ^ Paz, Shelly. "E. Talpiot residents adjust to possibility they're Jesus's neighbors", Jerusalem Post, 2007-02-27. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  6. ^ Gordon, Nehemia. The Tomb of Yeshua son of Joseph in "East Talpiot". Retrieved on 2007-06-08.
  7. ^ a b Nissenbaum, Dion. "'Lost Tomb' documentary jeered", McClatchy Newspapers, 2007-02-27. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  8. ^ Zias, Joe (2007-03). Viewers Guide to Understanding the Talpiot Tomb ‘documentary’ to be aired on the Discovery Channel. Retrieved on 2007-06-08.
  9. ^ a b c Nathan, Peter. "A Critical Look Inside the Jesus Tomb", Vision Media, 2007-02-28. Retrieved on 2007-03-14. 
  10. ^ R. Kirk Kilpatrick, Ph.D. on the Symbology of the Tomb http://confirmedword.blogspot.com/2007/03/so-called-jesus-family-tomb-mysterious.html
  11. ^ "Clergy, scholars assail tomb of Jesus film", The Courier-Journal, 2007-02-27. Retrieved on 2007-02-27. 
  12. ^ Jesus 'Tomb' Controversy Reopened - TIME
  13. ^ Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
  14. ^ Princeton Conference Vindicates Associated Producers James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici on "Lost Tomb of Jesus"
  15. ^ Duke University Religion Department: The Talpiot Tomb Controversy Revisited
  16. ^ .[1][]
  17. ^ 2007 Alumni/ae Reunion
  18. ^ 2007 Alumni/ae Reunion
  19. ^ J. H. Charlesworth, Rebutting Sensational Claims Concerning a Symposium in Jerusalem
  20. ^ Society of Biblical Literature
  21. ^ Evans (2007-05-11). The Tomb of Jesus? Wrong on Every Count. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.

[edit] Further reading

  • Eric M. Meyers: "The Jesus tomb controversy: an overview", Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4 (Sep-Dec 2006), pp. 116-118

[edit] External links